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get forgiveness than permission.”
Educationalists might find this a
dangerous message but the school is
delighted, protecting the work and saying
they would never sell despite its high value.
(“Dynamic teachers have realised that
to teach you have to use contemporary
culture,” Rob Dean comments.)
The Scarlet Pimpernel of street art,
Banksy is lightning fast and slippery. I
pass a time-distressed wall in Hanover
Place near the Bristol dockyards. Rust,
bricks and cracks show through the
paint; Johannes Vermeer’s gorgeous Girl
with a Pearl Earring glances back at me.
Two-storeys high, squeezed between
windows and building edge, it’s a Banksy.
In the stencilled design, a yellow alarm
box replaces the famous earring; she’s
now The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum
gracing the exterior of a recording
studio. Banksy’s wit, usually political, is a
signature of his style.
Black paint soon spattered this recent
work. Banksy’s note to the children, “feel
free to add stuff”, flags street art’s work-
in-progress nature, Dean explains.
Dean says an early Banksy, a scuba
diver pulling a plug in a fountain near
Bristol’s City Hall on the mellow-bricked
Georgian arc of College Green, was
promptly removed by the (then, zero-
tolerance) Council. But Banksy’s followers
were faster, snapping it up.
By the time Banksy’s Well Hung Lover
appeared nearby, dangling naked by his
fingertips from a (stencilled) windowsill
framing a staring, suited man and under-
dressed woman, the Council was ready to
listen to the peoples’ voice and preserved
it. It is now one of ‘at least six’ Banksy’s
surviving in Bristol (add another, with
Bridge Farm Public).
Dean, an expert on artists, styles,
history and current moves, says, “My job
is to broadcast and promote the artists.
They create an individual, powerful,
independent voice.”
Banksy is Bristol’s most famous son of
the streets, but the scene is wider. “It’s a
bigger picture than just Banksy,” Dean
says, “he is the doorway and people walk
through it and see the wider picture.”
He adds, “Over eight weeks this year,
850 metres of new artwork was painted in
Bristol; over 50 different people doing the
painting.”
Inkie is a well-known local name; as
is Cosmo Sarson – his Break-dancing
Jesus repays a visit to the gritty activists’
neighbourhood of Stokes Croft, where
Wherethewall, operator of Bristol Street
Art Tours is based, organising youth
workshops, an annual festival, videos and
a Sat-Nav app of street works.
At Bristol Museum & Art Gallery,
where the 2009 exhibition ‘Banksy versus
Bristol Museum’ brought the city millions
of pounds, Banksy’s (donated) Paint Pot
Angel stands tall inside the entrance,
red-dripping upturned pot on her head.
Hilariously, its wall sign is missing a
word and some guardian of grammar has
corrected it in biro. Banksy would approve.
Retiring to an atmospheric basement
bar on Christmas Steps, Dean tells us
about the medieval graffiti uncovered
beneath a layer of emulsion in the nearby
14th-century Church of John the Baptist,
built into the city walls. •
Visit: [@] www.visitbristol.co.uk ;
[@] www.wherethewall.com (tickets on line
or at Bristol Tourist Information Centre,
Harbourside); [@] www.banksy.co.uk
Bristol Art Gallery.
Honouring the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee,
thought to be painted by Incwel.
Well Hung
Lover
GetUp&Go 43